EH.R: British Recovery 1945-51

================= EH.RES POSTING ================= I am an attorney who hopes to retire to become an historian and college instructor. I am currently enrolled in a masters program at California State University at Sacramento, California, where I am researching Britain's relations with the United States as Britain struggled to recover from the economic losses caused by World War II. I am particularly interested to trace the conflict between US and UK economic policies during the period of 1959 - 1951. The purpose of my inquiry is to determine if the US intended to assist Britain to reassert its economic and political leadership of the world economy or sought to frustrate British aims in order to achieve US hegemony. I have so far examined the records of the Truman Presidential Library, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) records from the National Archives, and numerous books on Anglo-American history in the 20th century. I am looking for primary sourse material on British policy making 1945-49. I am especially interested in information on the British decision to devalue in 1949 and the course of British economic policies after Devaluation and the impact of the United States led mobilization in 1950-51. I am especially concerned to learn about British "substitution plans" that called for members of the Commonwealth to substitute British "sterling oil" in place of purchases of American "dollar oil". All American authors I have read to date completely overlook the sterling-dollar policy conflict and accept without question the Truman Administration view that the British (Attlee government) were foolishly obstructing American attempts to integrate Europe and save the world from communism. I hope to find people who may have served in the Attlee government or have searched Treasury files on matters relevant to economic relations with the US. My research so far indicates that the US flooded the world with defense dollars in 1950-51 to forestall American exporters being excluded from a recovering sterling bloc. It may be that the US intervened in Korea not to stop Soviet military agression but to thwart Britain's threat to reestablish itself as the center of world trade. I have many, many questions about the views of the Attllee government. For example, did the Attlee government perceive the US mobilization as coming to Europe's defense or a "hostile takeover"? ============ FOOTER TO EH.RES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info EH.RES" to lists@cs.muohio.edu. >